Yet again, Reading Ireland Month was a great success with over 100 posts on everything from Van Morrison to Molly Keane, Elizabeth Bowen to Lenny Abrahamson.

Niall at Raging Fluff has compiled a great list of all the posts so you can still check out all the contributions.

Unfortunately, sickness took over for the last week and there were lots of books I didn’t get round to reviewing. This means that April on 746 Books could still have a strong Irish flavour. The books I still have to review include:

The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney

Martin John by Anakana Schofield

Resurrection Man by Eoin McNamee

All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

House of Names by Colm Toibin

It’s not often that my reading outstrips my reviewing to such an extent, but right now I have a lot of catching up to do! I may end up doing short mini-reviews, but some of these, if not all, really deserve a post to themselves!

Sickness also delayed the announcement of the winner of my Illuminate giveaway. I shall rectify that right now by saying that the winner of a copy of Illuminate and a host of Seamus Heaney HomePlace goodies is

Congratulations to Rebecca and thanks to everyone who commented and tweeted.

Thanks must go to Niall at Raging Fluff for being the best co-host as ever and to all of you fab bloggers who read and reviewed Irish authors, commented, tweeted and liked. Your enthusiasm is so infectious and so appreciated.

Sickness prevented me to have the Reading Ireland Month I wanted to have, though I was sick at the beginning of the month. That’s so annoyed. I couldn’t do this challenge the way I wanted, and I lost plenty of time in preparing the AtoZChallenge. Thanks March!

But it was nonetheless a great month. I will go through the rest of the list over the next few weeks. I enjoyed everythign I read.
Thanks so muc fo rorganising this.

At least you got some reading done, sorry to hear you’ve been unwell, look forward to your upcoming reviews, some great titles in there. Have heard good things about this latest by Donal Ryan and the Toibin looks a bit different to his recent forays.

Feel better, Cathy! It was another great month, and just like the last two years, I’ve discovered a few new-to-me authors whose works I really enjoyed. I didn’t have time to post about everything I read, unfortunately, but I’m very happy with all the reading I got done. I’m already looking forward to next March!!

Sorry to hear that, but glad you’re on the mend and ready to bookchat even more. I’ve had some difficult bouts in Marches-past too, so I’ve been drinking this fermented concoction of vinegars and garlic and turmeric and other tonics, a tiny glass every couple of days, which seems to have kept things at bay. Now that you’ve recognised the pattern, maybe you can find something restorative and foul tasting to start up next end-of-February. My Irish reading is going to linger into April too; I feel like I just got going halfway into March and am still finishing things up!

Sorry to hear you got sick! That wasn’t very good timing, was it? It was a wonderful event, as usual – I enjoyed my own reading as well as reading about everyone else’s. And I’m looking forward to hearing about every one of those books you haven’t reviewed yet! Hope you’re feeling better soon! 🙂

Sorry to hear you are feeling below par Cathy. Hope you’ll be on the mend soon. I enjoyed the month once again and even though I didn’t read that much, I liked what I did read….

I’m going to be watching with interest for your review of The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney. Glorious Heresies was one of my Reading Ireland books and I thought it was quite remarkably different but also was curious to know what she would do next. Today I read a review which suggested Blood Miracles isn’t anywhere as good as her debut. So now I await your verdict!